Primary Elections, Kate Spade, N.B.A. Finals: Your Wednesday Briefing

Image

Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who will run for governor of California, pledged in a speech on Tuesday to push for guaranteed health care for all and “a Marshall Plan for affordable housing.”CreditCreditJim Wilson/The New York Times

Five months to the midterm elections

• Gavin Newsom, the Democratic lieutenant governor of California and former mayor of San Francisco, captured one of two spots on the November ballot for governor. He will face John Cox, a Republican businessman backed by President Trump, in a state that Mr. Trump lost by nearly four million votes in 2016.

New Jersey could prove as crucial as California in the contest for the House in November. Democratic leaders are hoping to flip as many as four of the five Republican-held districts in the state, and a former Navy pilot and a pro-gun state senator are among those who secured nominations.

Her designs defined an era

• Kate Spade made handbags you simply Had. To. Have. The purses she designed for her fashion label were status symbols and tokens of adulthood. She was also a savvy businesswoman, building her aesthetic into a $2.4 billion brand.

• Watching his performance, our N.B.A. columnist writes, “is to behold the tragedy of the super performer wrestling with an age-old dilemma: How much do I need my backup singers?” Game 3 begins tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern.

Image

‘Charm City,’ Part 3: The Lure of the Streets

Nook spent the first few years of his life in an affluent suburb. But when he returned to Baltimore, he became part of a young generation caught between the crack epidemic and the aggressive police tactics meant to fix the problem.

Image

President Trump doubled down on his war with the Philadelphia Eagles on Tuesday, hosting a short celebration without the team as his spokeswoman accused the Super Bowl champions of turning their White House invitation into “a political stunt.”CreditDoug Mills/The New York Times

Business

• The Wall Street Journalappointed Matthew Murray, an insider, as editor in chief. His predecessor, Gerard Baker, presided over a rise in readership but faced accusations from staff members that the paper was too easy on President Trump.

Noteworthy

The Luna, a 377-foot yacht with a spa, two heliports and room for 18 guests, is in a dry dock in Dubai, the most fought-over prize in what has been called Britain’s most expensive divorce.

A Russian billionaire who has owned a home in England since the 1990s has refused to hand over a penny — much less the yacht — to his former wife. Our correspondent tells the tale.

Image

The Luna was customized for someone anticipating trouble. It has a missile detection system, an anti-drone system, bulletproof windows and bombproof doors.CreditMarco Secchi/Corbis, via Getty Images

• Miss America 2.0

The competition that began in 1921 has long advertised itself as more than a beauty pageant, even though women in bikinis defined its image. In an era of female empowerment, however, the organizers announced on Tuesday that they would scrap the swimsuit and evening gown portions of the competition.

Jonathan Weisman, our deputy Washington editor, recommends the 2016 book “Blood at the Root”: “I just read this, a nonfiction account of ethnic cleansing of Forsyth County in Georgia. It was 1912, not ancient history. The sense that there has been no justice for the African-Americans lynched, jailed and driven from their homes by the white citizens of Forsyth weighs on a reader like me — white, reasonably affluent, and raised with no knowledge whatsoever of what happened just up the road from my childhood home.” (Read The Times review.)

D-Day is a general term used for the start of any military campaign, and is used when the exact date of an operation is secret or not yet known. Similarly, H-Hour is a term used to describe a yet-to-be-determined time. The alliterative phrases go back at least as far as World War I, and helped keep actual mission dates out of enemy hands.

“The relatively calm water was churned by wave after wave of ships,” according to one Times account from Normandy, “some large enough to cast their eerie shadows in the early morning glow and others darting through like so many water-bugs.”